


august

by plutoandpersephone



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Archaeologist Hank, Bottom Hank, Bottom Hank Anderson, M/M, Naturalist Connor, Rimming, Top Connor, Top Connor (Detroit: Become Human)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutoandpersephone/pseuds/plutoandpersephone
Summary: Archaeologist Hank/Naturalist Connor AU. Set in the late 1920s.Connor wants to try something new. Hank is more than happy to do so.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	august

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bottom Hank Day over on Twitter, so... it absolutely does what it says on the tin. 
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with my archaeologist/naturalist AU, the main idea can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19105357/chapters/45396208).
> 
> I can't tell you how happy I was to revisit this AU! I'm planning to make this into a series with the other archaeologist/naturalist tidbits I've written, but it's just a standalone piece for now. Enjoy :D

It’s rare, these days, that Connor wakes before Hank. Hank has a lifetime of early mornings beaten into him—quick starts in the field, starting his work before sunrise, before the heat of the day becomes too oppressive. Connor’s hours have always been far more sporadic. Late nights trying to catch a glimpse of a rare firefly— _lampyridae_ , he would note, beside a neat little sketch—or long, hot afternoons watching butterflies wheel out over their favoured shrubs and greenery, chasing them well into the cool dusk gloom. 

Most days, in their house by the lake, Hank rises first. He makes a pot of tea and carries it out onto the downstairs porch, watching the water change from its flat dawn black to a glittering morning gold. He does this right up until the months when the ice starts to creep in at the edges of the bank, until the first snow threatens in the air. Then he moves to the drawing room, reading the newspaper in amongst the glass cases that have been specially built to house his finds. In recent years, he can attribute these discoveries—or at least the cataloguing and description of them—to Connor as well. 

Today is different. Connor rises with the sun, awakened by the watery light slanting in through the gap in the curtains. Hank slumbers on beside him.

Connor rises slowly and pads in bare feet to the small bathroom that adjoins their bedroom, relieves himself, washes his hands, his face. Out of the window he can see the hard-baked lakeside, cracked and crumbling in the August heat. It hasn’t rained in weeks. 

When he returns to bed, feeling slightly more lively than his initial yawning, squinted rousing, Hank is still sleeping. 

He cannot help but look. 

In a different life, Connor knows that he would call Hank his husband. Without a shadow of a doubt he knows it, and he understands that Hank feels the same. Connor calls him such in his private, personal journal, knowing full well how much trouble it would garner were anyone apart from himself or Hank to read it. At the same time, he hopes that—someday after his death, perhaps—someone might read his words and discover the truth of their relationship, the reality of all that blossomed between the walls of this house. 

He loves Hank with all the certainty of the sunrise. 

Connor watches as Hank— _my husband_ , Connor thinks—moves in his sleep, a sleepy groan and twist of his shoulder that causes the sheet to slip down away from his chest. Connor tilts his head, considering. At some point in the night, Hank had discarded his sleepshirt. With one finger, Connor traces the line of Hank’s upper arm, the broadness, the muscle beneath, hard and strong from years of working alongside the earth. Above his elbow his skin is pale, where he rolls his shirt sleeves up, where he has allowed his forearms to become freckled and browned by the sun. 

Hank shifts at the contact, but he doesn’t wake. Connor lets his hand wander further. He brushes up against Hank’s shoulder, trails his fingertips through the thick silver hair on his chest. With a little hesitation, he circles his finger around Hank’s nipple, just shy of pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Connor.”

Connor’s name is pulled from the depths of sleep, raked out over a pebbled shoreline. There’s a husk to Hank’s voice that Connor knows well, although he is used to hearing it in different circumstances—with Hank’s mouth buried in the crook of Connor’s neck, on top of rucked sheets with Connor beneath him. And more than once, out on the low porch, with only the lake beyond to hear it. 

It’s an interesting shift. Connor didn’t expect that from his simple curiosity, from his morning reverence. He traces his finger over the pink swell of Hank’s nipple once again. Hank moans, twists, his eyelids flicker. Connor bites his bottom lip, casting his eyes downwards at the foot of the bed. Much to Connor’s disappointment, abrupt and errant in his chest, the crumple of sheets between Hank’s legs does nothing to betray his desire. 

“Connor.” Hank’s voice is sharper now, clearer, he is no longer speaking from the depths of sleep. Connor’s gaze snaps back up to find Hank’s own—that clear, crackling blue. 

“Good morning, Hank.”

A sleepy smile plays at the corners of Hank’s mouth. “Good morning.”

Connor doesn’t speak to betray himself. With one hand, he gives Hank’s elbow a firm squeeze. 

“Shall I make us tea?”

Hank nods gratefully, before stretching and turning lazily onto his side. Connor watches the roll of the muscles in his upper back. And he thinks about his name in Hank’s voice, that low, gravelly gasp beneath Connor’s ministrations. For the rest of the day, he thinks about it, a steady, interested thrum beneath his skin.

Where Hank is concerned, Connor has never been very good at reining in his curiosities. In his field of work, he knows himself to be meticulous, a careful student of the natural world, and a talented one, by many accounts. In his private life he is more spontaneous. Carefree, even. 

As such, he cannot keep his newfound desires to himself for very long. That evening they sit out on the veranda and take an early dinner; Hank comments on a small flock of grey ducks paddling down by the muddy waterside.

“They’re mergansers,” Connor comments and Hank gives him a soft, indulgent smile. 

Connor doesn’t want to talk about waterfowl. Far from it. He lays his fork down beside his empty plate with a soft clink.

“Hank?”

“Hm?” 

Hank looks at him, his gaze intent. Connor doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the weight of Hank’s full attention—heavy and intelligent and so easily given to him. 

They’ve discussed their sexual proclivities before, mostly due to Connor’s private spontaneity that he would like to try something different. Still, it takes some effort to reveal that new, intimate part of yourself, even to the person who knows you best in the whole world. 

“I have a question,” Connor starts, slowly at first, and Hank doesn’t interrupt him. “Would you allow me to take care of you?”

Hank frowns. “You already do. I should think that we take care of each other and—”

“No, no. You misunderstand.” Connor stops Hank with a sharp shake of his head. “I mean to say—in our bedroom. Would you allow me to take care of you?”

There is a long moment of quiet, and Hank watches him closely. Although his expression barely changes, a high pink blushes from underneath his shirt collar, colouring his neck, his cheeks, spreading to the very tips of his ears. He makes a soft sound. “ _Oh._ ”

Connor’s chest squeezes with sudden panic. Did he misconstrue Hank’s reaction to his attention that morning? Was it nothing more than a dreamed fantasy, sleep-addled and sweet? 

“I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn,” Connor says, looking down at Hank’s hands, folded on the table before him. Hank has a scar running the length of his left hand and down beneath the cuff of his shirt—an accident with a pointing trowel, many years ago. Connor knows how it feels against his upper lip as he takes Hank’s thumb into his mouth, as silvery and polished as marble.

“Out of turn?” Hank asks, and his hands unfold, his fingers finding Connor’s wrist. “No, Connor, my love. Not at all.”

Now it’s Hank’s turn to look quelled. Connor senses that there is something unspoken flowing between his words, and he begins to wonder whether Hank’s blush was not shame or anger—but rather a heady and overwhelming course of desire, thick and sudden in his gut. 

Hank’s next words confirm his suspicions. 

“I think, Connor,” he says, squeezing Connor’s hand, “that I would very much enjoy that.”

A wave of relief floods through Connor. Pulled along behind it, on the high crest of the water, is a burning wildfire of want. He shifts in his seat, uncomfortably aware of the tight coil of heat that is already sparking low in his stomach, curling down between his thighs. Hank notices this, and gives him a roguish smile. A rough promise. 

It takes a few days before they find the right time to act on their discovery. Their intimacy in that time is tinged with something new, like it has gilt edges, like a storm crackles on the horizon. 

It’s Saturday, the air cooled, the skies filled with the first grey clouds that Connor has seen in weeks. At the end of the week it is customary for the pair of them to set aside their work in the early afternoon, leaving themselves the rest of the day to relax in each other’s company, to run errands that are unrelated to insects and the great hidden mysteries of the earth.

This afternoon though, Connor has other ideas.

Hank is sitting at his desk, with each of the wide bay windows of his office thrown open to allow the breeze to waft into the room. He has a stack of letters before him, most of them answered, all of them held beneath a glass paperweight—a jewel-green chafer beetle suspended in eternal motion. 

Connor has done his tasks for the day, although he suspects many of them will have to be redone with the coming of the new week. Distraction does not allow his work to be of the high standard he expects from himself. But no matter.

Connor approaches Hank from behind, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you finished?” he asks, as Hank turns his chair to face him. 

“Not quite.” Hank is wearing his reading glasses, a small pair of spectacles that he has to glance over in order to regard Connor properly. “Half an hour more, perhaps.”

Nerves and excitement flutter in Connor’s stomach, a shiny-winged butterfly.

“Can you finish now?” he asks, taking his previous question and turning it into a sharp point. It doesn’t take Hank long to work out exactly what Connor means.

“Ah.” Hank takes his glasses off and folds them away in his pocket. “Yes. Yes, I can finish now.”

“Good,” Connor says. “Come to the bedroom when you’re ready.”

As he speaks, he tries to fill his voice with as much command as possible, the way Hank does when he takes him—with kindness, but with insistence. With a firm hand. He’s not sure if he’s entirely successful, but whatever he produces makes Hank’s eyes widen and his neck flush. 

“I will.”

Connor has already prepared a few things in the bedroom: fresh linens, a bottle of the same almond oil that Hank favours, with its bitter marzipan smell. 

Hank joins him sooner than he would have expected. Because of the heat and their relative isolation, he’s spent the day in just his cotton undershirt, barely fastened at his neck. Connor would love to put his mouth at the soft spot between his collarbones, where a thin sheen of sweat shimmers. Take a little care, he has to remind himself, take a little time. 

“Hank,” he says, perched on the end of the bed. “Are you ready?” 

In their years they’ve learnt how best to prepare for the most intimate acts, and although Hank has often prepared Connor—a warm washcloth between his legs, just enough pressure to make Connor squirm—he has never done the same for himself. 

“I thought you might ask this of me today,” Hank says, with a grin. “I took the liberty of preparing myself this morning.” 

Connor is thrilled by Hank’s eagerness, although he tries not to let it show in his expression. He does his best to keep the lines of his face neutral and stoic, playing the part of being totally in charge. “Oh, well. I admire your initiative.” 

Hank takes a step forward, closing the gap between them. At this angle, Connor is in line with his navel, the swell of his gut pressing against his thin underclothes. He’s wearing a pair of loose grey slacks, the low waisted kind that would require suspenders in proper company. Today, he’s forgone such intricate accessories. The sight makes Connor’s mouth water.

“Where would you like me?” 

Hank’s words are guiding, like a careful hand wrapped around Connor’s own. They’re both nervous at the newness of the situation, but it's an anticipation, an excitement for what is to come. 

“Sit here,” Connor says, getting to his feet and gesturing for Hank to switch places with him. 

Hank sits on the end of the bed, watching Connor. With the cloud-dark sky and no lamps yet lit, the room is cast in a hazy, dreamy light. Connor is sure that Hank’s eyes must be the brightest, bluest thing in the world. 

Outside, the wind cards its fingers through the trees. 

“Come and kiss me,” Hank says, breaking their reverential, restless silence. 

Connor does as he’s asked, leaning down to press his mouth against Hank’s own. They kiss slowly, unhurried, and Hank slips his tongue against the underside of Connor’s top lip. Teeth scrape on soft skin, bite just hard enough to send sparks shuddering through them. 

The kiss fortifies Connor. It reminds him—as if he could have ever forgotten, really—how deeply he loves Hank, how much he wants to see him laid soft and bare beneath his hands. How beautiful he knows he will look.

“Take this off.” Connor hooks his thumbs under the hem of Hank’s shirt, raising it so that Hank can pull it off over his head. 

Hank’s body stills Connor each and every time he looks at it. Power, strength, softness, the barrel of his chest and stomach. He runs his hands through the silvery hair on Hank’s chest, pausing to take his nipple between his thumb and index finger. Gives it a sharp, brief pinch. 

“Ah—Connor,” Hank hisses the words from between his teeth. It’s a good sound, Connor knows that much, rough and unexpected. 

“Does that feel good?” Connor asks. He knows his own expression borders on smugness. 

“God. Yes. It does.” 

“Good.” Connor does it again, just for good measure. Hank’s head rolls back slightly, and Connor takes the chance to press his teeth against the exposed line of his neck.

“Take these off too.” Connor undoes the top button of Hank’s slacks and Hank obliges him, his fingers fumbling with the fastenings. 

The trousers join Hank’s shirt in a pile on the floor. 

Hank is just wearing a single undergarment now, a pair of cotton shorts with a button at the waistband. Connor can see his interest already beginning to press against the fabric. 

“Those next,” Connor says, although this time, he doesn’t move to help. Hank removes the clothing himself.

“What now?” Hank asks.

A moment passes in silence. Connor has to give himself that much. It’s hardly sufficient time to appreciate the sight of Hank sitting on the edge of the bed, his thick thighs spread wide, impressive cock already half-hard with the focused attention of Connor asking him to undress. 

“On all fours?” Connor asks, matter-of-factly. “Or on your back?”

Hank swears, a quiet exhalation, and Connor can see how his breath is already coming quicker and shallower, his chest moving in punched-out gasps. Well, at least he’s not the only one. 

“Like this.” Hank moves up along the bed and leans back on his elbows against the pillows, his knees bent. Pulling one of the cushions from behind him, he slides it under his hips so that they tilt up slightly. Connor tries not to look too enthralled by the sight, the incredible intimacy in the spread of Hank’s legs, the way his flushed cock curves up against his stomach.

Connor kneels between the cradle of Hank’s thighs, kissing his mouth—sweet, deep—his chest, the trail of darker hair that leads down between his legs. He’s taken Hank between his lips countless times, tasted him as he emptied into Connor’s mouth, one hand wrapped tightly in the curls at the back of Connor’s head. 

But he’s never taken him like this. He can hear his own heartbeat and feel a familiar heat pulsing insistently between his legs—something that, for now, he simply has to ignore. 

He presses his mouth against the inside of Hank’s thigh, against the crease of his buttock. And then, he finds that tight, hot pucker. First with his lips, a gentle ghost of his breath that makes Hank’s hands curl into fists in the sheets, and then with his tongue. He presses softly at first, and then more firmly, until his tongue breaches the ring of muscle and Hank’s hips cant up off the mattress.

“Connor!” It’s a rough shout, torn ragged around the edges—the kind Connor is used to hearing when Hank’s thighs are pressed right up against his own and he is spilling deep inside him. 

“Was that okay?” Connor asks, his mouth close to Hank’s skin. The proximity makes Hank twitch. 

“Yes,” Hank pants, “yes. It was a surprise, that’s all, I—” He covers his face with his forearm, wiping it across his eyes. “I didn’t expect it to feel like that.”

“Good?”

“Very.”

Connor grins, and Hank lets his head flop back down against the cushions. 

For the next few minutes, Connor lets the responses in Hank’s body guide him. He presses his mouth against the tender skin of his thighs, lets his tongue roam over that now wet heat, pushing in, lapping at Hank’s loosening rim. With his hands braced against the back of Hank’s legs, Connor takes Hank, claims him, winds that burning hot coil tighter and tighter until sparks must be flying from it. Above him, Hank moans, a steady stream of platitudes and curses that only increase in volume until—

“Stop,” Hank gasps, craning his neck upwards so that he can regard Connor better. “Just for a moment.”

“Why?” Connor rests his cheek against Hank’s thigh.

“You know damn well why.”

It’s true, and they both know it. But that’s not enough of an answer.

“I do,” Connor concedes. “But I want to hear you say it.”

“Connor…” Hank buries his face in the crook of his arm once more. “Please, I—”

Connor runs his tongue along Hank’s length, and through the precome that is leaking onto his stomach. Hank shudders.

“I want to hear you say it,” Connor repeats.

Hank doesn’t uncover his eyes. He speaks finally, after a deep, grounding breath.

“You need to stop that, or all of this is going to be over far sooner than you would have hoped for.”

In response, Connor rakes his teeth lightly over the soft skin at the back of Hank’s thigh. Hank yearns into the contact. As pleasant as that sounds, Hank spilling over his own stomach with Connor’s tongue inside him, it’s not exactly what he had planned. Another time, perhaps. 

“Okay,” Connor says, bracing his hand against Hank’s side. “Thank you for warning me.”

To give Hank a moment of respite, Connor fetches the oil on the bedside table, undoing his own britches before pouring a little of the liquid over his fingers. It’s cool and viscous and the bitter smell alone is enough to make Connor twitch in his underclothes. 

“Shall I continue?” Connor asks, and Hank shoots him a desperate look that tells Connor that the tone he is using is sending Hank wild. Good.

Connor pulls his trousers down to his knees, underclothes with them, wrapping his slicked hand around his own cock. The brief contact is enough to make him gasp. He had been so utterly focused on Hank’s pleasure that he had forgotten his own, rising and cresting in the back of his mind, low embers of a fire now stoked into action by the pull of his fist. 

“Give me your fingers first, Connor,” Hank says. He sounds debauched already, dragged so close to the edge that he had to forcibly pull himself away. “Please.”

Of course. As eager as he is to feel Hank’s tight, clenching heat, he knows that taking it all in one go would be too much. Connor nods—of course. Love of my life, lain before me like a banquet, of course.

He comes to kneel behind Hank again, rubbing a touch more oil over his index finger, his middle finger—his ring finger, just to be safe.

One finger inside Hank and his head rolls back against the pillows. It’s delicious to watch him like this, the way his eyes slide closed with pleasure, the way his mouth goes slack. His heat is tight and tantalising, and it’s all that Connor can do to keep from rushing through everything and just pressing the head of his cock up against him. 

Two fingers and Hank moans into his fist, an unrepeatable curse that is enough to make Connor’s cheeks flush fiercely, giving himself a few rough strokes with his spare hand. Connor knows there is a sweet, white-hot spot inside Hank somewhere, and he searches for it with his fingertips, stretching Hank all the while. Hank’s whole body is blushing, his toes curling into the sheets beside Connor’s calves. 

Three fingers in and he manages to crook up against that tender cluster of nerves—Hank’s hips rock off the bed and he makes a sound that is half moan, half shout, no longer muffled against his fist. Satisfied, Connor keeps his fingers in the same motion, in and out, doing his best to brush up against that hot, sensitive spot every time. Still untouched, Hank’s cock twitches with each press. 

Hank moans.

“Stop,” he says again, a rough, desperate plea. Connor pauses, lets his hands come to rest on Hank’s knees. “I want you inside me now. Please.”

Connor is all too eager to oblige him. He presses up against Hank’s thighs, putting himself in line with that irresistible heat, now loosened by the attention of his tongue and the stretch of his fingers. 

With a slow, steady push, Connor slides inside—and all the air seems to disappear from his lungs. 

The heat of Hank’s body is intoxicating, incredible, but the look on his face is enough to make Connor forget himself for a second. Bliss, magnified tenfold, magnified by the sharp, glorious precipice that he’s teetering on the edge of. Connor could certainly watch him like this for the longest time. 

“You have to move, now,” Hank mutters impatiently. 

Connor takes a steadying breath before can allow himself to fall into him.

He starts in slow, controlled thrusts, trying to keep his pace as regular and even as possible. But the pleasure building in his gut is undeniable, an already taut cord that just winds tighter and tighter with each quickening slide of his cock.

“Touch yourself, Hank.” Connor breathes the request through barely gritted teeth, just about keeping himself steady with his hands on Hank’s knees. “For me.”

Hank reaches down to wrap his hand around himself, stroking more or less in time with the movements of Connor’s hips, gasping as he twists his fist tightly on each upstroke. Connor can feel himself barrelling towards release, that familiar pressure building embarrassingly quickly, every inch of him pulled as taut as a singing iron wire. 

“Connor.”

It’s all the warning Connor gets. 

His own name in a gasp, a low and drawn out moan. Just as it had been that sunny morning, when he had traced Hank’s chest with his fingertip. 

Hank spills over his own fist, eyes clenched shut, drawing in more tightly around Connor as he does so. 

The sight of Hank—undone, beautiful, wild in passion—and that sudden change in pressure is enough to send Connor tumbling over that same sharp cliff. A snap of tension, a searing flash of white light. He halts the movement of his hips, allowing that wildfire to crackle out over his skin, across his chest, his stomach, right down to the soles of his feet, as he empties inside Hank. Stars whirl and flash behind his eyes.

“Oh.”

In the end, it’s all he can muster. If there are profound words for the intimacy that they have just shared, he does not know them.

“Hank,” he murmurs, when the glitter of the universe finally clears from his vision. “Hank.”

“I’m here.” Hank’s voice sounds from somewhere below him, as if he’s very far away. “Come down here, will you.”

Connor moves slowly, coming to rest on the bed at Hank’s side. With one arm wrapped around his shoulders, Hank pulls him in close, and Connor rests his head on Hank’s chest. The sound of his heart is very clear, a gradually slowing drumbeat, bringing both of them down from those soaring, blistering heights. 

“We should clean ourselves,” Connor comments, opening his eyes and looking down at the mess smeared on Hank’s belly, drying between his own legs. 

“Let’s stay here for a minute,” Hank says, and Connor has no want to argue. His fingers toy with the hair on Hank’s chest.

“Was that alright?” Connor asks. 

“Alright?” Hank questions, stroking Connor’s dark curls away from his face. “You are exquisite. A treasure with so many hidden facets—and that I should be the lucky man who gets to discover them, well. That is more than alright.”

Connor lets Hank’s praise flow over him, a cool balm against the heat of his skin. 

They sit in the quiet of each other for a moment. Then, through the open window comes the sudden sound of rain, pattering fingers on the still surface of the lake. 

“Finally,” Hank says. He presses a kiss to Connor’s temple.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and follow me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/andpersephone)


End file.
